


One year in.

by Little_Corners



Category: Justified
Genre: Angst, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-18
Updated: 2014-11-18
Packaged: 2018-02-26 04:23:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2637926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Little_Corners/pseuds/Little_Corners
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We dug coal together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One year in.

One year in and Boyd speaks.  
Raylan knew his name, knew his face, had heard his voice before of course, echoing in the darkness like some demon of the pit. Of course. And he had known him really since they was 6 years old, in one form or another. That kid in school who was never really there, even when he was, but whose absence was like a scorch mark. Later, that boy in his daddy’s pick up, all lean smiles and that gun under his shirt, never well hidden. Him and Bowman both, like a pair of jackals. And now, in the mine, the man who carried their lives in his hands. It’s an uneasy thing at first, for Raylan to accept – Boyd is as young as he is, and he remembers that scorch mark and the feral expression, and it makes absolutely no sense to put him anywhere near something that goes ‘bang’ but somehow it works. 

And one year in, Boyd speaks.

Raylan doesn’t answer at first, so Boyd is forced to repeat the question, with a somewhat smoother drawl. When Raylan turns, he is surprised to find him standing so close, but he holds his eye and doesn’t bolt. When it’s over, and he’s mumbled some half-formed thoughts in to the space between them, he feels kind of relieved and that annoys the shit out of him. He hands are fists the whole way through. 

It takes a while for the coil to loosen, and it leaves marks across his skin that ache as the blood comes rushing back, but Raylan prefers it that way; it shouldn’t be painless. It should be like nails in his skin to find something in common with a boy like Boyd, and he fights it with every slackening bond, but damn if it doesn’t feel good to let the chain off sometimes. He finds himself laughing too much, so he tries to curb that. It feels too close to the surface. 

They don’t talk all that much in the dark. Raylan doesn’t like it if he can’t see Boyd’s eyes, and there’s something disconcerting in the way the shadows make his face look hollow. He still hears him though; the cadence to his breathing, the pattern of his footfall. He finds him in the black even when he’s not looking. After the shift, they sit in the cab of his truck and share a bottle in silence and he tries to forget what he thought about when Boyd licked his teeth and smiled. 

He wakes up once with blood on his knuckles and stays in a foul mood all day. Even Arlo decides not to push too hard, which kind of pisses him off because he really doesn’t need an excuse today, swear to god, and at least it would be a fair fucking fight for once. He spits bullets all day, blood under his fingernails that he just can’t shift and the need to break something ever present in his bones. Boyd takes the hit when it comes, and runs a thumb over the trace of blood left at the corner of his mouth, laughing softly. Raylan would have carried on, given half a chance, but Boyd just grins and disappears like smoke in the cold air. Next day, Raylan can’t seem to see past the bruise he left, nothing but the purple stain every time their paths cross. But Boyd doesn’t mention it ever again and Raylan knows why. It doesn’t make it any better though. 

There’s a moment once, in the locker room, when they are alone. Boyd has his back to him, head bent down as he buttons up his shirt and Raylan is watching the flex in his neck and shoulders, the way the muscles move under the skin and he can almost see the blood pulsing, honest, or maybe that’s just in his head. Feral he called him once, and never is that word better placed. Dangerous, thinks Raylan, and liable to turn. But then if that’s true of Boyd, it must be true of him too. Nails in the skin. 

He begins to hate the way Boyd teases. The jokes and the thinly-veiled comments, that idiot grin, all designed –he is sure – to make him feel a fool. He hates the callousness in them, the unfeeling carelessness with which they are dispensed, as if they mean nothing when he is damn sure (maybe) that they do. He bites at every line Boyd throws. He’ll hit him again soon, he knows it, and the thought brings up something red and thundering that he can’t seem to shake. But then they’re in the cab of his truck again, and Boyd is unfurling another bottle from inside his jacket and Raylan decides to let it go, washed away in the night and the soft drawl in Boyd’s voice, easy as that. The teasing doesn’t stop but Raylan wears it a little better from then on in, because he knows for sure that it can’t mean nothing (maybe).

It’s the evening, and Boyd speaks. Up close, so his mouth brushes Raylan’s ear as it moves and the rush of words come to him on warm breath, hurry now, quickly, let’s get the fuck out of here. Raylan turns his head as that mouth withdraws, follows it’s master down in the dark, grit and laughter in it’s wake. Nearly catches that lip as he does, and if he lent in now he definitely would. Boyd doesn’t move, so Raylan can’t either. Teeth just at the edge, mouth curling in to a smile, he knows right then exactly how that mouth would taste. Knows, and yet desperately wants to be sure. Knows, and yet can’t really imagine it. Boyd doesn’t move. There is only a fraction between them, and he is watching his mouth, and he can feel the quiver in his breath, and he can’t do it. He can’t do it.

Not even when Boyd saves him. They run like the damned up that tunnel, heart bursting, legs like lead, every nerve in tatters and he’s sure, so fucking sure, this is the end and he has everything left to do and it’s so fucking unfair, so fucking unfair to die like this. But they don’t, and even then, even while he still has Boyd’s hand in his own and his chest is hammering so hard, and absolutely no body would know, he can’t. Boyd knows. He can see it in Raylan’s face. He doesn’t say anything, but then how can you talk about something that doesn’t exist?


End file.
